Out of Reach
by GoodTea
Summary: Lizzie feels awful, although she was so happy about going to college in the first place. Miranda doesn't understand why. She thinks it's because of the argument Lizzie and Gordo had before graduating high school. Lizzie hasn't revealed the truth yet, but she's aware of results, that hiding a truth causes. Especially from best friends. (AWFUL ENGLISH)
1. Goodbye, Hillridge, welcome, Berkeley!

It was a beautiful day.

I was sitting on the outside stairs, in front of the house, which was surrounded by sea of flowers. The weather was boling hot but I saw trees moving by a chill little wind. I was thinking, it was probably my last summer here, in Hillridge. I mean – sure, I'll come back every year but I won't see fall or 'winter' here. I'll be way too far away.

I was waiting for Miranda coming back from her vacation in Mexico City. Also the last one. I enjoyed the see of the blue sky. Wind was playing with my hair. I didn't have any mp3 player with me, which was unusual of me, because I always have one. This time I just wanted to enjoy the moment. Listen to the birds' songs, children playing in the neighbour's garden.

I had been going to college, I should had been happy, right? That's what I had wanted since junior high. But I didn't like the fact I have to leave my city, my family just for what? For studying even more than now? Some people I might never see again. And yes, I had a particular person on my mind.

I missed him for two months. I just saw him a couple of times, on periods, in the cafeteria. I saw him as happy as he's never been before and then thought: _Is that how we were supposed to end up? Hating each other, pretending we've never existed, even as friends?_ The more times I saw him like that, the more conviced I was. But it didn't change my feelings at all.

_What feelings?_, I asked myself. And that was the point. I couldn't have answered this question then and still couldn't do it now. Anytime I tried to figure it out, it turned out I had bigger problems on my neck, like exams or tests for example. So I had been pretending it's all okay and continuing our messed up friendship. I couldn't have said anything to him, told any secrets or confided about boy problems. There weren't a lot of them, after all. Not that nobody was interested in me – just _I_ wasn't interested in anybody. I'm sure that was some kind of relief for him but I just had wanted to focus on school and hadn't got much time for boys.

Miranda was just the opposite – she had few boyfriends but no one of them was _for real_. My thought? She was a little bit into Larry Tudgeman. Yeah, funny, I know! Everyone at junior high had considered him as a geek, which only meant he'd been original and hadn't been looking for a social acceptance. But these are good qualities. I know that because I've learned from my best friend it's not important what people thin about you.

I noticed black van getting on the driveway and I stood up. I was very happy to see Miranda after two weeks of separation. She almost fall out of the car, wanting to hug me as soon as possible. She was so glad to see me she didn't want to let me go.

"What are you doing here?!", she asked, still happy.

"I wanted to make a surprise for you", I answered, smiling at her.

"Well, looks like I made a surprise for myself".

We laughed. She had long, dark her, perfect body and a twinkle in her eye. She had been getting prettier more and more.

Suddenly, she became sad and asked quietly:

"Have you talked to Gordo lately?"

I shook my head. _I wish I have_, I thought to myself.

Well, let me get this straight – Miranda was convinced we don't talkt because of this stupid arugment we had during the work on the school project two months ago. That's partly right. We had fought about this but it turned into full-of-grudge we held against each other, painful, difficult, personal fight. All unspoken words, unexpressed emotions came out from us and just explode, seeing a chance to show up in our little misunderstanding, wether the vulcano should be painted black or brown.

Anyway – sure, brown, isn't that obvious?!

"I can't believe he dumbed us because of such a silly reason", she said, shaking her head with disbelief. "I mean – we fought about more serious stuff and he wasn't even half as angry as he's now".

Miranda's duty wasn't to stop talking to him either, but she did it. She claimed if he was able to broke up our friendship because of such a trifle, he wasn't worth our time. She had a point. But she also didn't have a clue.

"Yeah, me too."

We decided to meet later – she was going to visit me and tell me all the details from her journey. Now, she had to unpack her stuff, take a shower after long ride and get a rest. I wished I would have a rest. My sad brain couldn't stop itself from sending me all memories I had with Gordo. It was just like my brain wanted me to die because of remorse.

When I got back home, I pulled out from under my bed an old photoalbum, the one I used to love looking over and the one I looked over when Gordo decided to move on up to high school. I still remember his words when we graduated junior high: _Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere_.

Sure, Gordo.


	2. Nightmares never end

_Don't worry. I've got your back, McGuire_. And then Rome had happened, and everything had turned into dust. I knew I had to stop my thoughts which were trying to make me mad, but I felt like there was no cure for that; but looking at it from an other perspective – it had been almost five years after those days and I still couldn't get over it. Wasn't that weird? I was pretty sure Miranda would say it's because I had feelings for him. But the more important thing for me was our priceless friendship – now ruined. See? We didn't even get into a relationship and it was already damaged. Things went bad because we fought over Rome.

On this day my house was like a standing disaster and chaos. My mom completely freaked out, Matt was happier than ever and dad was trying to calm me and his wife down. No results. She kept making sure I took eveything from the list we had made long time ago and I kept checking that. It was completely insane. I didn't know leaving your home would be so hard. I knew there would be many tears and hard-to-say goodbyes but controlling everything I had in my luggage? Good thing I didn't hide anything in it.

During the breakfast, Matt kept asking me for how long I am going to be far from home. Ugh, jackass! He was already fifteen but he was acting like he had stopped his growing up on ten. Things hadn't change much since I had finished junior high. He had still been a bug I wanted to squash.

I couldn't believe it. I was leaving my family home. Leaving all my memories – best of them – and moving to a different, strange place. Leaving all these people. Leaving… _him_.

When I thought about it, I felt like my heart crushed into a million little pieces.

Standing on the doorstep, I looked around. I needed to remember this view because I wasn't going to see it for a very long time. I knew I would be going to miss it.

"Be wise as you always are", mom said with tears in her eyes.

I felt like I wanted to cry, too. _Mom, please, stop!_, screamed a voice in my head.

I noded my head, trying not to let the tears stream down my face.

"I know you'll be okay, honey." Dad kissed the top my my head. He was sad, too, but calm in the same time.

"Be there for a looong, long time", Matt said.

"MATT!", mom screamed.

"Oh, trust me, I'll be", I said, not worried with what he just did, squinting at him. I knew it's not completely true. "And then I'll be back and squash you like a bug!"

"Kids, could you please stop for a minute?", mom asked. "We're in the middle of farewell and you're acting like enemies. AGAIN. At least pretend that you like each other."

I sighed.

"Okay, bye, Matt. Behave yourself."

"Bye, Lizzie. Never get back to us."

"MATT!", yelled both of our parents.

I waved at them and never turned my head back.

I met with Miranda at the bus station. She didn't look like a person who was excited about going to college. Honestly, me neither. On one hand, it was perfect – no more grumbling parents, no more orders and duties – excluding studying, of course. On the other – we were aware that things wouldn't be the same when we came back. But definitely the worst part of it was that…

"We didn't reconcile with Gordo", Miranda said.

Because whatever happens, parents will always be there for us. The same should be with friends. Well, it looks like not in every case. But we knew that if we hadn't made peace with him until now, we wouldn't do it any other way. It was the main reason I couldn't be happy. I had to cheer up, I knew that. Maybe Gordo was a perfect friend, but I was sure there would be other people in the world, fitting perfectly as a friends.

"Come on, Miranda!", I said, not being able to stand this situation for any longer. "I will be great, I promise. There are lot of people we'll meet and make friends with. You'll see." I enfolded her in my arms. "And one day we'll make peace with Gordo. Maybe… maybe this day won't come quickly, but will do it for sure."

Before we noticed, bus arrived. Barely carrying our heavy bags, we got in to the bus, which took us straight to Berkeley, where I was supposed to study journalism and Miranda – design.

The travel was long; Hillridge was a small town (and very boring, by the way) so getting to more popular places was always hard. Me and Miranda talked, slept and listened to music a lot. Thinking about arrivig was making my heart beat faster. Somehow it was a little bit stressing – new school new people, new embarassment. I just had gotten another chance to show how miserable my life was.

Is it only me or I really sounded like junior high McGuire?

Anyway, sky was getting darker and darker when we got to the Berkeley. I had to say – I felt very lost, although there was Miranda by my side. Judging from her face, she was as scared as I. So we were completely alone in completely strange, new city and we stood in the middle of pavement like complete dorks. Not that that was new experience – we used to look like this many time in the past. But then situation was worse because everybody knew us.

After fifteen minutes of conversation, we decided to as somebody how to get to the campus. It just crossed my mind that with Gordo we wouldn't have problem like that because we'd have some kind of a map or something with him. Some old woman told us the way, we thanked and walked away with baggage on our hands – heavy, overloaded baggage.

"Can I help you?", voice next to me asked.

I turned my head right. In the going down sunshine, I saw a boy, my age I'd say. He was quite tall and muscular, had a nice, friendly face and cheering up smile. His dark brown hair seemed a little bit brigther because of the sunlight. I knited brows a little bit unkindly and asked:

"What?" He could had been a thief or something!

Miranda punched me with her elbow straight in my ribs. I yelled "ouch!" quietly, trying to massage them in order to ease the pain.

"Hi!", she said with a big smile on her face. "You'd really like to carry them? They're seriously heavy. Like the Stonehnge or something."

"Don't worry, I'll do it." He brought both of our big travelling bags (we also had rolling cases with ourselves) and continued to go.

He was a step forward, but he seemed to knew where we were going.

"Um… we're actually going towards campus." Explained Miranda afert few minutes of awkward silence.

"Oh, yeah, I know", he chuckled, turning his head back a bit.

"How?", I asked.

"I heard you asking this old lady to tell you the way to campus. And besides, it's the time of a year when students drift up to town. And all of them have big cases and bags, just like you do."

I understood he was older. Maybe even _much_ older, but I didn't answered to that. I was way too focused, imaginating myself how our dorm would look like.

The way to the campus was long, but luckily Ryan turned out to be a very nice guy. He left our baggages right in front of the door of our hall and offered a trip around the campus.

"Oh, no, thanks", I answered with an fae smile before Miranda got too excited and answered other way. "We're tired and need a rest. But thanks for carrying our cases, it was very nice of you. See you later!" I got into the house as fast as I could, ignoring Miranda's curious questions about what I'd just done.

"Lizzie! You're not even listening to me!", she yelled when we stopped in front of the door of our dorm. The key was already in the lock. We get the info about our room number in an e-mail. "Lizzie!" Oh my God, she never gives up, huh?

I turned towards her quickly.

"I don't like older boys, okay? And we barely know him. He could have been a… a rapist or something! Older guy equals bigger needs! And I want to focus on studying. Boys can only distract me."

Miranda looked at me as if I was incredibly stupid.

"You're unbelievable, Lizzie McGuire."

I finally unlocked the door and we came into our dorm. It was gorgeous! We've got separeted beds and the wall were light green. Each one of us had her own closet and we had our own bathroom. We couldn't be happier.

We had a few days left until the classes started so we used it to see the whole campus. We went for a walk every day so we learned the area by heart. In all our joy there was one thing missing – our best friend who could be sceptical and nervous about our first days here. Who knows – maybe he already has new friends and is not afraid anymore?

One day I didn't feel like doing anything, anything at all so I decided to go stay in my bed. Miranda said that a beautiful days like this can't be wasted so she went out. After few minutes I put my laptop out of my case. I opned my mail box and hestitated. Should I? Is he going to answer my e-mail anyway? I sighed and put the laptop away.

There weren't many minutes passed when Miranda shot the door loudly, breathing heavily and crovering the door with her own body.

"What happened?", I asked and got out of my bed.

Miranda finally got back to her normal breathing.

"Guess who on the campus lives", she answered.

I nodded my head.

"Larry Tudgeman."

Oh. My. God. The junior high nightmare just decided to follow me to the rest of my life.


End file.
